BASHMAN
Basic Action Games
When I first started playing D&D Rules Cyclopedia, our GM had a lot of unorthodox rules for generating characters. He let us buy GURPS Advantages (paid for with Disadvantages) to help customize our characters and make them more unique. This was before "Feats" and we seemed to like this system better than Skills & Powers. This method allowed my Halfling to have a Dire Wolf companion, but he was also claustrophobic, flavor / mechanical nuances we wouldn't have had using the rules as-is.
The second unorthodox thing was letting us "buy" our Ability Scores; and his method for this was INCREDIBLY generous compared to the Point-Buy systems that later emerged. We got 10 points of "plusses" (back then, and 18 was +3, 16-17 was +2, 13-15 was +1, 9-12 was +0, etc). So most of us had multiple 18s or 16s, with a few 9s or 13s here and there. He said "this game is hard enough; you'll be happier if you have a better odds on your rolls". He was right; we had some very nasty scrapes; but eventually took that campaign to level 32.
I was thinking if I were to run 5e, I'd probably take a similar idea for generating stats (maybe less generous than my old GM though). Still 10 points of "plusses" (but now that an 18 is +4, this doesn't stretch as far as it used to). Also an odd number would count as half a plus (our old GM equally distributed the high/middle/low of a given stat bonus) because the benefit of later stat increases makes this worth having. So a 17 would count as 3.5 points and a 16 is only 3 points, etc.
Feats make an Advantage system pretty unnecessary and I'd probably allow players to design (with my advice/approval) custom feats if the thing they want isn't available. Disadvantages are also very fun to play sometimes (never knew why D&D never took this on). I'd probably let a character start with an extra feat if they took a set of disadvantages at start. Probably do this as 3 "points" worth of Disadvantages, where each one is rated by severity (-1/-2/-3). Maybe crib from Savage Worlds or something for that.
Who else out there is doing *more generous* than the core rules stat generation? How did you do it? How is the game going? What would you do different?
The second unorthodox thing was letting us "buy" our Ability Scores; and his method for this was INCREDIBLY generous compared to the Point-Buy systems that later emerged. We got 10 points of "plusses" (back then, and 18 was +3, 16-17 was +2, 13-15 was +1, 9-12 was +0, etc). So most of us had multiple 18s or 16s, with a few 9s or 13s here and there. He said "this game is hard enough; you'll be happier if you have a better odds on your rolls". He was right; we had some very nasty scrapes; but eventually took that campaign to level 32.
I was thinking if I were to run 5e, I'd probably take a similar idea for generating stats (maybe less generous than my old GM though). Still 10 points of "plusses" (but now that an 18 is +4, this doesn't stretch as far as it used to). Also an odd number would count as half a plus (our old GM equally distributed the high/middle/low of a given stat bonus) because the benefit of later stat increases makes this worth having. So a 17 would count as 3.5 points and a 16 is only 3 points, etc.
Feats make an Advantage system pretty unnecessary and I'd probably allow players to design (with my advice/approval) custom feats if the thing they want isn't available. Disadvantages are also very fun to play sometimes (never knew why D&D never took this on). I'd probably let a character start with an extra feat if they took a set of disadvantages at start. Probably do this as 3 "points" worth of Disadvantages, where each one is rated by severity (-1/-2/-3). Maybe crib from Savage Worlds or something for that.
Who else out there is doing *more generous* than the core rules stat generation? How did you do it? How is the game going? What would you do different?
